600,000 firms to engage in e-commerce

ISTANBUL

The number of companies that engage in e-commerce activities is expected to rise from 484,000 last year to 600,000 at the end of 2022, according to Ömer Nart, chair of WORLDEF that will organize the World E-commerce Forum in Istanbul later this month.

Volume of e-commerce in Türkiye more than doubled after the COVID-19 pandemic, local companies have been seeing very strong orders from foreign countries, Nart said, noting that e-commerce in fact started to grow particularly after 2019.

“Back in 2019, only 56,000 companies engaged in e-commerce, but their number rose to 254,000 in 2020 and further up to 484,000 in 2021,” he said.

According to data from E-commerce Enterprises Association (ETİD), e-commerce volume in Türkiye reached 381.5 billion Turkish Liras last year. The business group expects e-commerce volume to hit 560 billion liras this year.

Per capita e-commerce expenditure rose from 2,800 liras in 2020 to 4,749 liras in 2021, while the number of orders increased from 2.39 billion to 3.34 billion, according to ETİD.

Nart said that the World E-commerce Forum to be held between Sept. 28-30 in Istanbul will welcome 20,000 participants.

“The business volume of the marketplaces that will attend the forum is $250 billion. If Turkish e-commerce companies capture a 1 percent share in those platforms this means $2.5 billion of export revenues. Türkiye’s export revenues from e-commerce is presently at around $2 billion,” he said.

Participants from 34 countries, including more than 40 investors and funds will take part in the forum in Istanbul. More than 150,000 B2B meetings are expected to take place during the event.